Edward Jones is a brokerage firm you’ve likely heard of over the years as it passes a century in age.

Founded in 1922, Edward Jones now has over 8 million clients with a combined $1.5 trillion in assets managed by over 19,000 financial advisors as of Q3 of last year.

Edward Jones also offers consumers a number of competitive brokered CD (certificate of deposit) accounts with competitive yields on terms ranging from 3 months to 10 years.

Because Edward Jones is a brokerage firm and not an actual bank they don’t issue their own CDs. Instead, they ‘broker’ or re-sell a range of deposits issued by banking institutions that they’ve partnered with which provide FDIC coverage. We go into more detail on brokered CDs further below.

Edward Jones CD Rates + Account Details

All Edward Jones CDs require a minimum deposit of $1,000 to open. Please note that 7 and 10 year CDs are not available at this time.

CD Rates

CD Term	APY
3 months	5.20%
6 months	5.25%
9 months	5.25%
1 year	5.25%
18 months	5.15%
2 years	4.90%
30 months	NA
3 years	4.60%
4 years	4.55%
5 years	4.45%
7 years	NA
10 years	NA

The rates above were surveyed on June 2, 2023. These yields and terms may not be available in all states.

To give these offers some context, the current national average for a 12 month CD and a 60 month CD sit at 1.59% APY and 1.37% APY, respectively, according to recent FDIC data.

How Much Can You Make with an Edward Jones CD?

The amount of money you can earn with an Edward Jones CD is going to depend on your deposit size, the term you select and its APY (annual percentage yield). Take a look at the table below to get an idea of how much you’d earn with a handful of Edward Jones CDs assuming a deposit size of $100,000.

CD Term	APY	Earnings
6 months	5.25%	$2,591.42
12 months	5.25%	$5,250.00
2 years	4.90%	$10,040.10
5 years	4.45%	$24,320.35

How do Edward Jones CD Rates Compare?

If you’re wondering how Edward Jones CD rates compare with other brokered CD rates, take a look at the table below. We’ve pitted Edward Jones against other well known brokerages and their best CD rates.

Brokerage	CD Term	APY
Edward Jones	6 month	5.25%
Charles Schwab	10 month	5.50%
Morgan Stanley	11 month	5.27%
Fidelity	3 month	5.35%
Vanguard	10 month	5.50%

Edward Jones Brokered CDs Account Details

A few crucial distinctions must be made between standard CDs and Edward Jones’s brokered CDs.

The most important of these being that you do not open or manage brokered CDs yourself. On top of that, the actual CD isn’t technically a product of Edward Jones at all. Instead Edward Jones purchases a CD for you from one or many different banks in partnership with this firm.

You can open new CDs with Edward Jones or you can purchase secondary CDs.

If you open a new CD with Edward Jones you will not have to pay any commission fees. Edward Jones will receive a concession from the bank that takes your deposit, but this is already factored into the price.

If purchasing a CD on the secondary market, you will have to pay Edward Jones a commission just like you would purchasing stock. You can see what commission they take in the trade confirmation.

A benefit of Edward Jones brokered CDs is that they don’t have early withdrawal penalties. If you need to cash out of your deposit early you can simply sell it to another investor on the secondary market.

Unfortunately, this also means there is an inherent downside to these products in that their price fluctuates on the open market and can feasibly be sold for less than the purchase price.

For example, if you open a 5 year deposit and need the funds after year 2, during which time interest rates have risen considerably, you may have a tough time selling your deposit for your full purchase price.

Conversely, if you purchase a 5 year deposit and rates drop significantly (which they have) then you may find investors willing to offer a premium on your CD on the secondary market.

Also note, interest earned on Edward Jones CDs does not compound. This is true of most brokered CDs as they require an immediate distribution of interest. The terms of your personal CD will tell you how often the interest on your account is credited and where.

Brokered CDs with Edward Jones do not automatically renew.

How to Purchase a CD Through Edward Jones

To open a brokered CD with Edward Jones, you’ll first need to set up a brokerage account with them if you don’t have one already. Edward Jones is a full service brokerage account with no minimum deposit requirements for account opening.

Opening up an Edward Jones brokerage account can be done online, however purchasing an Edward Jones brokered CD can not. For this you will have to go to a local office and fill out the paperwork. They will provide you with a prospectus to look over and discuss your options with you before you make any decisions.

As soon as your initial deposit clears, you are free to buy a new CD or a secondary CD through your Edward Jones broker.

Additional Deposit Accounts Offered Through Edward Jones

Edward Jones is a member of SIPC and deposit products with this firm are insured up to $250,000 per depositor.

In addition to its extensive suite of investment products and brokered CDs, this firm also offers money market funds and a cash management account.

Edward Jones Money Market Funds

Money market funds offered at Edward Jones, and most other brokerage firms, are not money market accounts. Money market funds are simply liquid mutual funds with good cash access. Money market accounts are federally insured deposit accounts with a guaranteed return of principal plus accrued interest.

Because money market funds are mutual funds with cash access, they do not guarantee that you will receive a full return on your principal.

On top of that, the cash in a money market fund may be used to invest in CDs or other short-term investments, but deposits into these funds are not FDIC insured.

Edward Jones money market funds are available as investment shares and retirement shares – both of these taxable options. You will be charged a $3 monthly maintenance fee for retirement share class money market funds with balances below $1,500 and a $3 monthly maintenance fee for investment share class money market funds with balances below $2,500. Talk with your advisor about cash and cash equivalents available for you to invest in with your money market fund—this will vary. 

There is no minimum investment required to open a money market fund and the current 7-day yield per share is 0.01%.

On the positive side, these money market funds make withdrawing and using money simple because they allow you to write unlimited checks and use a Visa debit card. Transactions and withdrawals are unlimited, unlike money market accounts.

Edward Jones Flex Funds Account (Cash Management Account)

An Edward Jones Flex Funds account is a cash management account that earns interest on your uninvested balance.

There is no annual fee and you can write up to 120 checks per year free of charge. This account is insured up to $1.5 million leveraging multiple banks’ $250,000 FDIC deposit insurance using the “Bank Sweep Program.”

With a Flex Funds account, you can set short-term savings goals for yourself and easily track your progress toward them. Your financial advisor can go through the details about how to strategize saving and investing with this account, but you have a lot of options and flexibility overall with a product like this.

Account Set-Up and Management

Edward Jones allows you to make quick and easy deposits into your account(s) and transfer funds electronically. You can enroll in online bill pay and link a direct deposit to one or more of your savings or investment accounts. Mobile check deposit is another feature included on the Edward Jones native apps for both Google Play and App Store, where they score an impressive 4.8 out of 5 on both platforms.

Final Thoughts

Edward Jones is a more than satisfactory brokerage firm and its brokered certificates of deposit are offering some competitive yields on short-term and mid-range CDs.

If you’re looking to park some cash into a CD (certificate of deposit) then you’re probably wondering whether now is the right time to open one or if CD rates will continue to rise throughout the year – perhaps providing an opportunity to obtain better rates in the near future.

While predicting anything in financial markets is nearly impossible, generally speaking, if the Fed continues to raise prime rates, banks and credit unions will continue to raise their rates.

On the loan side we saw it quickly as mortgage rates, auto loan rates, credit card rates, etc. shot up in the second half of 2022 at a breakneck pace to keep up with the Fed’s series of 0.75% rate hikes. On the savings side, however, things moved much slower – but still in the upward direction.

As of the second quarter of this year, the Fed has moved to a less hawkish stance on rate hikes with most analysts expecting rates to stay where they are for the time being and potentially decline towards the end of the year.

All that to be said, below is an overview of where we think CD rates are headed in the near term and throughout 2023.

Interest Rates Going Forward

During the May 2nd and 3rd meetings, the Fed stated that they will determine whether or not more rate hikes are needed by looking at incoming economic data (namely inflation data and the jobs report). This is different language than what they used in their last meeting where they stated that they “anticipated more rate hikes will be needed” suggesting that interest rates may stay put for the near term.

Since the Fed’s base federal funds rate for overnight loans to banks sets the benchmark for all other interest rates in the United States, the Fed’s policy shift is going to continue to affect the interest rates for other financial securities, including certificates of deposit (CDs), money market accounts, savings accounts, etc.

Will CD Rates Go Up in 2023

So far, CD rates have continued their ascent in 2023 but they may be nearing a peak and/or plateau for the months of June and July.

• The next Fed meeting is June 15th with a 75% probability of no rate hike and a 25% probability of a 0.25% rate hike.
• The Fed meetings in July will culminate on the 26th with a probability of 45% that rates remain the same as they are today, a 45% chance they’re up 0.25% and a 10% chance that they’re up 0.50% (source).

To get an idea of how CD rates moved following the Fed’s 0.25% rate hike on May 3rd take a look at the table below. This shows the change in the best CD rates offered by well known banks, credit unions and brokerages from May 3rd to June 1, 2023.

Institution	Best CD Rate (May 3)	Best CD Rate (June 1)
Capital One	4.30%	4.75%
PenFed Credit Union	4.70%	4.70%
Vanguard (brokered CD)	5.15%	5.50%
Edward Jones (brokered CD)	5.10%	5.25%
Fidelity (brokered CD)	5.10%	5.35%
Bread Savings	5.20%	5.20%
Synchrony Bank	5.00%	5.00%
Marcus by Goldman Sachs	4.75%	5.05%
Ally Bank	4.80%	4.80%

To put these CD rates into perspective, below is the national average for CDs terms 6 months to 5 years according to FDIC data pulled June 1, 2023:

• 6 month CD rates – 1.19%
• 12 month CD rates – 1.59%
• 24 month CD rates – 1.45%
• 36 month CD rates – 1.36%
• 48 month CD rates – 1.30%
• 60 month CD rates – 1.37%

To get an idea of how fast these averages have been climbing, here are the national averages for 12 month CDs and 60 month CDs every month since the start of 2022 to June of 2023:

	12 month CD avg.	60 month CD avg.
January 2022	0.13%	0.28%
February	0.14%	0.28%
March	0.15%	0.29%
April	0.17%	0.32%
May	0.21%	0.39%
June	0.25%	0.48%
July	0.31%	0.57%
August	0.46%	0.64%
September	0.60%	0.74%
October	0.71%	0.83%
November	0.90%	0.98%
December	1.07%	1.09%
January 2023	1.28%	1.21%
February 2023	1.28%	1.21%
March 2023	1.36%	1.26%
April 2023	1.49%	1.36%
May 2023	1.54%	1.37%
June 2023	1.59%	1.37%

📌 Please note For the first time since the Fed began hiking rates in March of last year, the average CD rate for 5 year terms did not rise month over month, indicating a plateau may be forming for longer term CDs.

Will Savings Account Rates Go Up in 2023

Variable rate savings account rates and money market rates have been on the rise this year as well, but are showing signs of plateauing as well.

To get a better sense of how they’ve moved since the Fed’s last rate hike, here are some popular FDIC-insured online banks and their savings rate movements since the Fed’s latest rate hike on May 3, 2022.

Institution + Account	Rate Δ	APY
UFB Elite Savings	no change	4.81%
First Foundation Bank Online Savings	up 0.35%	4.85%
Bask Bank High Interest Savings	no change	4.75%
Capital One Performance 360	up 0.15%	3.90%
Ally Online Savings Account	up 0.10%	3.85%
PayPal high yield savings account	no change	4.15%
SoFi Checking and Savings	no change	4.20%

A Look at Certificates of Deposit

Certificates of Deposit (CDs) are deposit accounts held at banks or credit unions that provide fixed interest rates for a specific period of time. CDs differ from savings accounts in two primary ways:

• CDs are time deposits – that is, the money put into a CD is set to remain invested for a specified period of time, such as six months, a year, three years, or five years. Investors can withdraw their funds early, but incur an early withdrawal interest rate penalty for doing so.
• The interest rate earned with a CD is usually a fixed rate, while the interest rate paid on a regular savings account is commonly a variable rate. There are variable rate CDs available, but the vast majority are fixed rate.

CDs are favored by investors with a low risk tolerance, as they are considered one of the safest types of investments, being insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) just like other deposit accounts at a bank.

The downside of CDs is the fact that their real rate of return rarely keeps pace with inflation. Case in point: with even the best CD rates around 5.00% and inflation around 6.04%, CD investors, while earning some nominal rate of return, are still encountering a negative real rate of return.

The only time CD investors win big real rates of return is when they invest in a long-term CD when interest rates are extremely high, and then prevailing interest rates drop substantially (along with inflation) over the term of their CD deposit.

However, most CD investors readily accept the reality of relatively low real returns. They are typically much more concerned with having a safe investment that earns some rate of interest than they are with having a growth investment that stands a good chance of being able to outpace inflation.

Past Trends for CD Rates

Back in 2021 when inflation started to pick up, CD rates were still dropping. By the end of that year, the average rate for one-year CDs had dropped from 0.21% to 0.14% and the average rate for five-year CDs had fallen from 0.36% to 0.26%.

In 2022, however, the Fed became much more aggressive in their fight against an unrelenting rate of inflation and completely reversed their stance on rates making a total of 7 historic rate hikes unseen in decades.

This pushed CDs up in a major way, albeit it took quite a while for them (especially the large banks) to raise their rates for savers.

For example, while the average 12 month CD has yet to hit 2.00% even after 10 straight rate hikes by the Fed, top yields from online banks are already creeping over the 5.00% APY mark for ~12 month terms.

Why is this?

Bigger banks and older traditional banks are normally the slowest to raise rates for savers.

Bankrate’s chief financial analyst, Greg McBride, cautions that banks may be a bit stingy with interest rate increases. According to McBride, “Most banks, and big banks in particular, are sitting on a pile of deposits and will be very hesitant to pass along higher yields to savers if they don’t need more deposits.” That fact may further dampen the direct effect of increases in the fed funds rate on CD yields.

All that to be said, in Q1 of 2023, even the largest banks in the country like Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citibank had competitive CD rates on the menu for at least a couple of terms (mostly promotional options) with Citibank leading the way offering an 18 month IRA CD yielding 5.72% APY. Wells Fargo’s best CD rate is a 13 month promotional offer yielding 4.76% APY and Bank of America’s top rate is a “Featured CD” with an APY up to 4.50%.

How to Find the Best Interest Rates on CDs

There are a number of banks that offer interest rates that are significantly higher than the average rate, on both savings accounts and CDs.

The trend in recent years has shown the best CD interest rates tend to be offered by the growing number of “online only” banks. Since they don’t have the massive overhead expense of physical branch offices to contend with, online banks have more free cash flow that they can use to entice depositors by offering higher yields on CDs.

Among the banks offering the highest CD yields recently are Bread Financial (formerly Comenity Direct), Barclays, Synchrony, and Marcus by Goldman Sachs.

With the futures market indicating smaller rate hikes in 2023 as well as a plateau sometime later in the year, it’s not a bad idea to monitor CD rates periodically.

If you’re on the fence about opening a CD right now, you may also want to consider a variable-rate, high yield online savings account so that you can benefit from any future interest rate increases.

Alternatives

You may be able to earn higher returns while still holding investments that are considered very safe by making investments in alternatives to CDs.

One such alternative is a money market account. Some money market accounts pay higher interest rates than most CDs. They also offer the flexibility that CDs lack, as you can withdraw your money any time without suffering any interest rate penalty.

Another alternative investment is a tax-free municipal bond. Being tax-free already gives such an investment an advantage over a CD. You can also get a much higher return on investment (ROI) with municipal bonds, many of which are currently paying interest rates above 5%. Municipal bonds are not quite as safe an investment as CDs, but while the possibility of the bond issuer defaulting on interest rate payments does exist, such defaults have, historically, been very rare.

One often overlooked alternative investment, one that’s perfectly safe and tax-free, is, instead of depositing money in a certificate of deposit, using the money to pay down high interest rate debt, such as credit cards. Paying off the balance on a credit card that charges 19% annual interest has the same net effect on your finances as earning a 19% return on investment – with the added benefit that making such a move doesn’t incur any tax liability, thus, making for a 19% tax-free return on investment.

Treasury Yields

Short-term US Treasury Yields are currently providing higher yields than CDs. Below are current US treasury yields available as of market close on May 31, 2023 (source).

Term	Yield
1 month	5.28%
2 months	5.37%
3 months	5.52%
6 months	5.46%
1 year	5.18%
2 years	4.40%
3 years	4.04%
5 years	3.74%
7 years	3.69%
10 years	3.64%
20 years	4.01%
30 years	3.85%

This table shows an inverted yield curve – where short term interest rates are greater than long term interest rates, but it has leveled out some since our last update in early February.

In the past, this has been a successful indicator of a recession.

CD rates have also aligned with this trend as 12 month CD rates have been higher than 5 year CD rates since December of last year.

CD Rates Moving Forward – Summary

The short and sweet of it is that, given the Federal Reserve’s current stance on interest rates, the best CD yields may already be here. It is possible that we see some upward movement by individual banks and credit unions based on their own deposit needs and requirements but don’t expect much more than a 10-25 BPS raise from the best APYs (annual percentage yields) found today.

FAQs

Below are frequently asked questions by consumers.

Will CD Rates hit 6.00% APY?

There are currently no FDIC-insured CDs on the market providing a 6.00% APY for any term. And given the Fed’s stance on rate hikes moving forward, we don’t foresee CD rates hitting that mark in 2023.

The closest CD rates we’ve seen to the 6.0% APY mark are the brokered CDs at Vanguard which provide a yield of 5.50% APY for 13-18 month terms and a 5.45% APY CD from Nasa Federal Credit Union that comes with a 15 month term and requires a minimum deposit of $10,000 in new money to the credit union.

Do CD Rates Go Up with Inflation?

Generally speaking CD rates are not directly correlated with the rate of inflation.

That said, the measures the Fed tends to use to address inflation – like quantitative tightening and raising prime rates – does put upward pressure on CD rates.

Do CD Rates Go Up with the Prime Rate?

The prime rate set by the Fed is the primary factor banks and credit unions use when determining the rate to charge on a loan to consumers. It also impacts the rates they provide on deposit accounts such as CDs and savings accounts.

Banks and credit unions use this prime rate because it is the rate they are charged by The Federal Reserve to fund their loan products.

Do CD Rates Go Up During a Recession?

Usually no. The Federal Reserve’s primary lever used to deal with a recession is lowering prime rates. This happened in the 1980’s and more recently with the 2008 recession where rates dropped from over 5% to historic near zero lows. CD rates followed suit in both instances.

That said, consumers still tend to flock to CDs more so in uncertain economic times.